14 DAY TRIAL // Do you know where in the world you were on March 28, 2007? Do you know where you'll be on March 26, 2008? If the answer is "no" then you might just not be a real fan of the Command & Conquer franchise. While March 28, 2007, witnessed the release of Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, on March 26 this year the expansion pack, Kane's Wrath, is set to hit PCs worldwide, with an Xbox 360 version expected to arrive later in the summer.
Electronic Arts Los Angeles, the segment of EA responsible for the Command & Conquer series, has announced that the game has gone gold. That means that code changes are at this point out of the question and that manufacturing shall begin on the game disks that will arrive in various stores later in March. From now on, the team goes on a long hiatus, with only the Q&A people working away and hoping no big bug appears that justifies a day 0 patch.
Kane's Wrath is an ambitious project in itself, bringing a whole host of chances to its predecessor. All the factions, from the democratic GDI to the underground Nod and extraterrestrial Scrin, get two sub factions, a system first pioneered in Emperor: Battle for Dune, which allows for a greater diversity of gameplay within the same faction. Also, the linear campaign is pretty much gone, replaced by a total conquest system that allows you to choose where you want to strike. Don't think Medieval 2: Total War, but rather Warhammer 40,000: Soulstorm like. The story of the game is likely to be pretty interesting, detailing both the aftermath of the Nod after the Second Tiberium War and Kane's supposed "ascension" after the Third Tiberium War.
The game will ship with a beta key for Red Alert 3, so be ready to hit the stores on March 26, when Kane's Wrath becomes manifest.